Always the Interviewee, Never the Hire

You keep getting interviews, but why won’t anybody hire you?

The job search isn’t easy. You can submit 50 online job applications and never hear back from a single company.

But what do you do when you ARE getting interviews, but never progressing beyond the first or second round? Your resume isn’t the problem, so there must be something else holding you back.

We’ve got you covered. There can be plenty of reasons you aren’t getting the job offer. Let’s dig in.

You aren’t answering the interview questions correctly.

One of the hardest parts of interviews is that nobody will tell you how you did after the fact. You won’t get a gold star for doing well or a fat F for failing. However, if you aren’t getting any job offers, there might be something wrong with the way you’re answering questions during the interview.

Luckily, we have an entire series of blog articles designed to help you with the toughest interview questions, from “What Are Your Top 3 Strengths and Weaknesses” to “Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years?”

Other questions include:

Your body language is off, or you just aren’t used to interviews.

Interviews are awkward. It’s you and a random stranger sitting in a small room together to evaluate who you are as a potential employee.

Which means you’ll probably be nervous. And nerves can make us do weird things. Make sure to make proper eye contact, smile, and sit still. These things sound obvious but are hard to remember when your heart is beating a mile a minute.

For more information, check out our blog post, Body Language: When You Ruin Your Interview Without Opening Your Mouth.

In addition, try to conduct practice interviews with friends or family. Have them ask you a few questions from the interview question list above so you’ll be prepared for the real thing.

You’re a wild card, but not right for the job.

There might be something interesting on your resume (study abroad, background from a unique industry, a huge amount of experience, etc.) that gets you the interview. The interviewer wants to meet you and see how that interesting tidbit could apply to the job.

However, you might not be right for the jobs you’re applying for. Maybe you’re trying to reach for positions out of your experience range, or you want to switch industries and aren’t accepting lower paying positions.

The only fix for this is to start widening your job search net. Start applying for a more varied selection of positions and you’ll be surprised at what happens.

Have you ever gotten plenty of interviews, but no job offers? Let us know how it went in the comments section below!

Comments

  1. Elliott

    After the rare, few interviews I’ve had, I had two different people critique my interviews and they said everything was actually fine, there were no red flags.

    1. Miss

      Curious, how were you able to get critiqued? I could see how, if the interview was internal and that company also records interviews. In that scenario I could understand how someone could request the footage and critique. Most people reading this are applying for outside companies, so I’m just curious as to how could one have their own interview(s) critiqued.

  2. Nora Gaiser

    Had several in-person interviews but no respond, and phone interview but no call backs from either one, thinking I did good at both they say will call back and then no call back very disappointed or they email me saying they hired another candidate for that position but never interview me.

  3. Margaret Packard

    I have had interviews but no job, or interviews with a recruiter resulting in a job offer, but then let go after my first day or so of work. I guess it is because they saw that I was an older person (this happened in my late 50s) and was applying to jobs I was usually overqualified for, because there are few openings for an experienced proofreader nowadays.

  4. Tara

    I got called for an interview and went in. I felt it went well. I was told I would be contacted with the next steps. I sent a follow up email and the next week she called me to tell me they went with someone else. Very odd as to why they just didn’t send an email. It made me think they were calling to offer me the job.

Leave a Reply to Tara Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *